Two years ago today, on July 9, I had my first irregular mammogram. Calcifications in the left breast. A bunch of scans and biopsies later, we found breast cancer, not where the calcifications were, but in a different area of the same breast, and well, you know the rest of the story. Like so many things, that feels like yesterday, and like ages ago. How far we have come since then! An engagement, a dog, five surgeries, including two mastectomies, a house purchase, and two weddings later, here we are!
Still, on this day, I finally feel inclined to tell another piece of the story that I have kept to myself for a few weeks. I wrote about a month ago about a bunch of scans and tests that I had to follow up other possible longterm side effects of my radiation treatments. When I wrote that, I already knew the results: the neck ultrasound showed that I have two small nodules on my thyroid.
When the doctor shared this news with me, he didn't sound at all worried, so I am trying not to be worried either. These happen all the time, he said, especially in young women, and they are usually benign. And while young women are at higher risk for thyroid cancer than the general population, and I'm at higher risk still because of my radiation history, the risk is overall relatively small. Still, given all this, he is sending me to an endocrinologist (thyroid specialist) for an ultrasound-guided needle aspiration biopsy (the same sort of which I had so many for my breast). The earliest this could be scheduled was July 15 - a month later! I guess that's good, as it shows the lack of urgent concern. Even if this is thyroid cancer, it is very treatable, simply by removing the thyroid (sound familiar?), which would mean taking thyroid replacement therapy for the rest of my life. While I don't love the idea of being dependent on a pill for the rest of my life, there are worse things.
One worse thing that I can think of is going through this while already pregnant. Having to make the decision to put my pregnancy at risk by having surgery, or putting myself at risk by waiting several months to remove a cancer. I guess there is a part of me, then, that hopes this is cancer so I can just have the thyroid out and be done with it and then have worry-free pregnancies. (What a crappy place to be, that this seems like the better option.) Of course a much larger part of me wants it to be nothing and remain nothing, but I haven't had much luck with that particular gamble.
As for how I am doing with all this... I'm annoyed. Not even angry, or scared, just annoyed. As so many people have responded to this news, "Can't you catch a break?" Apparently not. I'm also tired - tired of having to make such Big Decisions about my and my future family's health, when I would so rather be deciding things like what color to paint the nursery (that's not entirely true - picking out paint is the worst). I'm tired of being the cause of concern, of worrying people (which is why I have kept this to myself, lest I worry people unnecessarily). I'm tired of medical hurdles being put in the way of starting a family - and before we've even had a chance to try to start one! I'm tired of follow-ups. I'm tired of needles. I'm tired of surgeries. I'm tired of scars. I'm tired of keeping my chin up. I'm just annoyed by all of this. Compliant, but annoyed. And tired.
If there is any aspect of this that does terrify me, however, it is the proximity of the thyroid to the vocal cords. If something should happen and my voice were damaged... I would be devastated. To not be able to sing to my children. To not be able to sing in Concentus. To not be able to sing hymns. Not to mention - to not be able to preach! What would I do?? I know the risk of this is very, very small, so I try not to go down that road, but I am aware that the road is there.
I've hated not sharing this, so now I am. I process externally (duh), so it has been torture not to be able to blog about what's going on in my heart this past month. Being home on vacation last week helped me feel in a better place about everything, so now that the biopsy is only a week away (and I'm trying not to read into the fact that it is the same week as my first breast biopsy, not to mention my birthday week), I wanted to share, and to solicit your prayers - for me, sure, but mostly for my family. More than anything, I'm tired of putting them through this.
Thanks for reading/listening. I'll of course keep you posted.
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